Josh Mack blogging at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, and occasionally on; bicycles, politics, Brooklyn, parenting, crafts, and good reading. Currently helping to build a new NYC neighborhood news site - nearsay.com, that celebrates the voices that make our city. Subscribe to the daily newsletter it gives you what you need to know.

July 23, 2007

While listening to Laurie Anderson read at the Doc Pomus tribute in Prospect Parkon Saturday night I wondered for a moment, what it would sound like if Laurie Anderson read the unabridged Harry Potter instead of Jim Dale.

More Harry Potter factoids. This morning on my subway car 17% of the adults on the car were reading the new Potter book. This stayed eerily consistant as people left new ones got on and pulled out the book.

July 22, 2007

On the wall of Kiehl's is the following motto. A great way of thinking.

"A worthwhile firm must have a purpose for its existence. Not only the
everyday work-a-day purpose to earn a just profit, but beyond that, to
improve in some way the quality of the community to which it is
committed. Each firm-as should each person-contributes to those around
it; and by dint of its day-to-day efforts, the message it thereby
imparts is a revelation of the quality standard at which its life's
work is conducted.”

It is one of the clearest differences between academic and mass-media criticism these days: Only academics are still allowed the privilege of assuming that when a work of art is under review, all of it is under review. True, critics who seem to think reviewing is simply delivering a plot synopsis with stylistic flourish are a pesky breed, and there are simple ways for writers to discuss plot developments vaguely enough that those in the know will understand while those who don't want to know won't. Still, if you really insist on approaching every book or movie as a plot virgin, the simple answer is don't read reviews. Or, in the case of the Harry Potter fans, quit Googling "Potter spoiler." The spoiler alerts remind me of those warnings on Styrofoam coffee cups: Caution - contents may be hot.

"Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."

July 19, 2007

We started wondering what steam pipes do and what causes them to explode so I turned to Kate Ascher's great book The Works: Anatomy of a City. It has a section on steam pipes and how they heat midtown buildings with wonderful illustrations. Sadly they aren't online on Amazon but you can read about the book andsee the table of contents. I think the explosion was caused by something called a>water hammer which she explains but the on it too. The book is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the David Macaulay books I had growing up. In fact a close relation of The Works is his book, Underground. Ascher covers so much more than what is under our feet though, spans of bridges, airports and pretty much every other system the city has. During the next blackout I look forward to lighting a candle and reading about why I'm in the dark.

"But selling the Company would be a huge mistake. First and foremost for the users. Any buyer will screw up Facebook. It's greatness comes from the fact that the people who run the company live inside the service, they built if for themselves and it works because of that. They have their pulse on the community and they are not likely to screw it up too badly."

July 16, 2007

On PaidContent I read today that ConnectBeam, an enterprise social bookmarking product has raised some money but even more interesting to me is the fact that when I visited their site and clicked on Demo it took me to a really good video demo that they had posted on YouTube. Below is the CEO walking you through their product.

The first concert I ever went to was the No Nukes Concert at MSG in 1979. I've been thinking about this concert lately and just found this video on You Tube of Bonnie Raitt. The concert was produced by David Fenton who now has one of the leading cause related PR companies.

July 13, 2007

"I've always said that you need to keep it on the table, and you need
to look at these things, because now people are dying because of this
administration. That's the truth. And they won't change course. They
are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements
which mean that he's decided not to enforce the law. This is as close
as we've ever come to a dictatorship. When you have a situation where
Congress is stepped on, that means the American people are stepped on." - Barbara Boxer in a interview yesterday.